The effect of peanut skins as a natural antimicrobial feed additive on ileal and cecal microbiota in broiler chickens inoculated with Salmonella enterica Enteritidis

Authors: Toomer, Ondulla; REDHEAD, ADAM - Math And Science Department, Andrew College; Vu, Thien; SANTOS, FERNANDA - North Carolina State University; MALHEIROS, RAMON - Andrews University; Proszkowiec-Weglarz, Monika

Submitted to: Poultry Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/29/2024
Publication Date: 8/16/2024
Citation: Toomer, O.T., Redhead, A.K., Vu, T.C., Santos, F., Malheiros, R., Proszkowiec-Wegla, M.K. 2024. The effect of peanut skins as a natural antimicrobial feed additive on ileal and cecal microbiota in broiler chickens inoculated with Salmonella enterica Enteritidis. Poultry Science. 103:104191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psj.2024.104159.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psj.2024.104159

Interpretive Summary: Salmonella is the leading cause of bacterial food-borne illness in humans. During poultry meat processing and/or egg production, the bacterium from Salmonella-infected birds is introduced from the poultry processing or production environment to poultry meat or eggs intended for human consumption. Therefore, the primary target of Salmonella control is mitigating the prevalence and transmission of Salmonella from poultry or poultry environments to poultry products entering the human food chain. Hence, in this feeding trial we aimed to examine the use of peanut skins as a natural antimicrobial feed additive to reduce the prevalence of Salmonella in the gut microbiota of broiler chickens inoculated with Salmonella. Results demonstrated that feeding peanut skins (4% inclusion) reduced the pathogenic bacterial loads and enhanced health-promoting bacterium in broiler chickens inoculated with Salmonella as compared to broiler chickens fed a conventional diet and inoculated with Salmonella. These studies imply that peanut skins could potentially serve as a natural antimicrobial feed additive and functional feed ingredient, with newly identified uses of a significant agricultural waste by-product.

Technical Abstract: The consumption of poultry products contaminated with Salmonella species is one of the most common causes of Salmonella infections. In vivo studies demonstrated the potential application of peanut skins (PS) as an antimicrobial poultry feed additive to help mitigate the proliferation of Salmonella in poultry environments. Tons of PS, a waste by-product of the peanut industry, are generated and disposed in U.S. landfills annually. Peanut skins and extracts have been shown to possess antimicrobial and antioxidant properties. Hence, we aimed to determine the effect of PS as a feed additive on the gut microbiota of broilers fed a control or PS supplemented (4% inclusion) diet and inoculated with or without Salmonella enterica Enteritidis (SE). At hatch 160 male broilers were randomly assigned to 4 treatments: (1) CON-control diet without SE, (2) PS-PS diet without SE, (3) CONSE-control diet with SE, (4) PSSE-PS diet with SE. On day 3, birds from CONSE and PSSE treatments were inoculated with 4.2 x 10e9 CFU/ml SE. At termination (4wk), 10 birds/treatment were euthanized and ileal and cecal contents were collected for 16S rRNA analysis using standard methodologies. Sequencing data were analyzed using QIIME2. No effect of PS or SE was observed on ileal alpha and beta diversity, while evenness, richness, number of ASVs (amplicon sequence variants) and Shannon, as well as beta diversity were significantly (P<0.05) affected in ceca. Similarly, more differentially abundant taxa between treatment groups were identified in ceca than in ileum. However, more microbiota functional changes, based on the PICRUST2 prediction, were observed in ileum. Overall, a relatively minor changes in microbiota were observed during SE infection and PS treatment, suggesting that PS addition may not attenuate the SE proliferation, as shown previously, through modulation of microbiota in gastrointestinal tract. However, while further studies are warranted, these results suggest that PS may potentially serve as a functional feed additive for poultry for improvement of animal health.